


You're It

by Otterly



Series: deer/tiger idiots [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15544632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otterly/pseuds/Otterly
Summary: Cameron has a brief encounter with a mass game of Tag whilst looking for Jamie.





	You're It

**Author's Note:**

> For /ztg/'s Thematic Thursday: /tg/topia
> 
> Also a sequel to Proximity, my other story, which you should read if you're intent on reading this one.
> 
> More deer/tiger yay

It’s May. Finals are coming up. They won’t be as hard as they will be in high school, but they’re still worth studying for. Good thing I already have, or else I’d be making a really bad decision by hunting for Jamie during lunch. I check the time: fifty minutes left. I look around the courtyard, scanning for any chestnut brown coats and finding plenty, but not the right one.

Which is weird. He should be easy to find.

Unless he’s—

Seven (or something) kids gallop past me, whipping wind into my fur and making it stand on end.

 _Crap._  He’s playing tag.

I should text him.

No, I shouldn’t. I’d just get left on read. Because he’d be running around. Not because he doesn’t care.

He cares. He’s my friend.

Something drifts through the air. I take a whiff.

It’s him. Somewhere.

My tail swishes, and blood runs hot in my veins. The call of the hunt.

I guess I have nothing to do, anyway. I guess I should answer it.

 

 

Seems like two thirds of my grade are involved in this game. That’s gonna be a problem. Every two seconds a new someone who isn’t Jamie runs past me, panting and constantly looking back like they’re running for their life. In a way, they are. Tag was originally started to see who was the most athletic in a herd, after all.

I walk to the side of the school, and it still baffles me that there are kids actually hanging out here. Probably helped their minds a bit to know that the big scary tiger lurking just around the corner doesn’t do that anymore, and isn’t scary. Pretty big, though. I don’t know what it is about prey — maybe they get growth spurts later on — but they’re so… _short._

“Cameron!” someone calls.

I turn around to find a capybara in a full Adeerdas tracksuit waddling up to me.

“Kerry,” I respond. “Hey.”

Still feels weird when someone talks to me, but I don’t want to punch a gift horse in the jaw.

“Jamie’s _really_ —“

“Where is he?”

He shrugs. “Probably inside. He’s good at slipping through crowds.”

“He is, isn’t he?” I say. “Okay, thanks.”

“Good luck,” he smiles. I smile back, without teeth.

“Okay bye,” he says again, walking away to join the rest of the track team, who aren’t wearing tracksuits, because you don’t need to wear a tracksuit 24/7 if you’re on the track team.

I breathe out of my nose. Better go inside before I think too much about it and get mad.

 

 

The moment I enter the hallways I know what’s about to happen. There’s an excitement in the air, floating above all the kids hanging out in their corners and talking to their friends, and I know it’s completely cliché to say this, but it’s electric. It’s something I can feel passing through the individual hairs on my arms and my head and my neck.

A stampede.

From my left, a horse sprints down the stairs, stopping only when he sees me.

He tilts his head. Are you playing?

I shake mine. No.

I catch Jamie’s scent in the air, as well. My tail swishes.

The horse turns the corner, and before I can think I’m running, because the horse is running and so is everyone else.

To the sides of us, the non-participants watch in fascination. Most of them are smaller kids, but some of the smarter older kids are sitting and observing as well. They know that it’s way too easy for something bad to happen when Tag happens indoors, and if something bad happens, everyone involved gets punished.

I smell deer.

From my right side, an ox nearly barrels into me, running away from some newly “it” kids. I scramble backwards to avoid his path, but from behind I hear the hoofsteps of a thousand children.

I turn to face them, seeing an even blend of familiar faces and strangers I’ve never seen before, and steady myself. Then I calmly walk forward.

I feel like Boaromir taking his last stand, but instead of fighting a bunch of mammals to the death I’m dodging them. A goat comes at me with his arms outstretched, so I lunge forward, ducking my head low to the ground. Directly after I pop back up, I make eye contact with a bunny, and I sustain it. He slows down for a second, tip-toeing around me before bursting out into full sprint when he completely passes my body.

My heart’s racing.

I want to get out of here. I’m tired. I want to just find somewhere quiet and take a nap.

But I can’t. I have to find him. I need to—

Someone pushes me, and someone else pushes me after that, and I fall out of the crowd and into a tile floor.

My eyes widen. I take a sniff. Thank god. It’s the boy’s bathroom.

Oh, god, my hands are touching the ground in the boy’s bathroom.

I spring upwards and run to the sink, fervently scrubbing my hands with the badly flowing water from the tap before I see that Jamie’s in the corner.

And if I wasn’t completely delusional right now, I’d say that he’s glaring at me.

“What are _you_  doing here? I didn’t see you at the beginning of the game. And you’re not allowed to start playing halfway through.”

“Plenty of mammals do that,” I counter.

“Yeah, but they’re breaking the rules.”

“And who’s going to stop them? No, actually, never mind,” I say, before shaking my head. I take a paper towel from a dispenser and dry my paws quickly. Then I face him. “I was looking for you.”

“Well, here I am,” he snips, looking away.

“Hey, I nearly died just now, maybe you can appreciate that I did that, like, just for you,” I tease, moving forward. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

" _I_ _’m_  not,” he seethes, walking towards the entrance.

Naturally, I block him. He moves in like, .25 speed compared to me, so it’s not hard.

“Gonna choke me out again?” he asks, the same bite to his voice.

It doesn’t hurt, though. It’s weird how hard it is for someone to hurt you when they’re actually trying.

I smile at him. “Not this time.”

“Get out of my way then.”

My smile grows, showing my teeth. “I’m gonna go with you to Tundratown.”

It’s amazing — I see his muscles go lax, and his posture go limp. All the wind is taken out of his sails.

“What?” he asks.

“I’m going with you, and I’m sorry for saying that you were no one and not worth following. I didn’t mean that.” I step closer to him. “If you’ll have me, I want to come with you. There’s nothing I want right now more than to see you every day. I’m not going to let that not happen. I have nothing here. Just you. You’re it.”

His lip quivers. He bites it to make it stop, which helps the tears pooling in his eyes stream out and down his face.

Jamie nods, and I reach out to pet him. His fur — deer fur is strange. It’s kind of nasty, actually. Like damaged suede. But it’s nice to touch sometimes.

“Uhhhhh,” someone says. We turn, and to our horror, the horse from earlier is standing at the entrance.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asks.

“Yeah. T.O,” says Jamie, making an X sign with his arms.

The horse groans, stamping his hoof impatiently.

He smiles at me, taking me by the hand and leading me outside.

“Okay, we’re playing now!” he calls at the horse.

And we turn and run away, together.


End file.
